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The Church: Catholic and Ecumenical
By Bernard J. Cooke

"It is probably safe to say that theology will utilize religious experience as a starling-point even more than it has done in the past two decades. This will mean that the development of ecclesiology will spring from careful reflection upon the communal experience of Christians, upon their shared awareness of what it means to be the church, upon the manifestations of the Spirit as prophetic and life giving. This will not be an entirely new approach for ecclesiology; what will be new will be some of the experiences shared in tomorrow's church. "

ROMAN CATHOLIC theology in the twentieth century, particularly ecclesiology, has been marked by the strong adherence to tradition that has perennially characterized Catholic thought. The pre-World War II Roman community was very much a Tridentine church, and theology about the church was dominated by the Council of Trent's response to the Reformation and carried on in the style of classic post-Reformation "controversy theology," with emphasis on the proof that only the Roman Catholic Church had the "notes" of the true church in their fullness. ¹

There were more subtle influences of the post-Reformation period on Catholic ecclesiology: the Tridentine reorganization of the clergy with regularized training and increasing professional status tended to crystallize the clergy/lay distinction; ² like most of the Christian churches, the Roman Catholic Church became heavily involved with the emerging

Bernard J. Cooke is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary in Alberta and is the author of the widely-acclaimed study, Ministry to Word and Sacraments (1976). He was educated at St. Louis University, St. Mary's College in Kansas, and Institute Catholique de Paris, and he has taught at Marquette University in Milwaukee and the University of Windsor in Ontario, as well as serving as a visiting professor at other institutions. Among his other books are Christian Community: Response to Reality (1970), Theology in an Age of Revolution (1971), and Rethinking the Faith (1972). His essay on the church is part of the continuing series in THEOLOGY TODAY, "Christian Doctrine." It attempts to address central themes in Christian theology and to stimulate discussion of them in both the church and academia.

¹ See, for example, the article "Eglise" in the Dictionnaire de theologie catholique (1924) in which columns 2128-2135 are devoted to discussion of the notes of the church.
² Cf. J, T. Ellis, "The Formation of the American Priest," The Catholic Priest in the United States. J. T. Ellis (ed.), (Collegeville, 197 1), pp. 3-110.

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structures of the European nation states with the consequent prominence in ecclesiology of questions dealing with church-state relations;³ and the focus of theological attention on Catholic-Protestant issues pushed Eastern Christianity even further to the periphery of scholarly notice.

At first blush, the worldwide missionary endeavors that began in the sixteenth century (and continued on into the twentieth) would seem to counter-balance this narrowing of ecclesiological perspectives. However, despite the heroic efforts of some prophetic figures who saw the need to honor the deeper catholicity of the gospel, missionary evangelization was basically a transplanting of Latin Christianity that accompanied European colonization. ⁴ In some ways, one can see most clearly in the mission developments the accents that characterize the post Tridentine church: efforts to establish as soon as feasible those official structures and lines of jurisdiction that would link the new communities to the Roman center, emphasis on official teaching of the magisterium as norm for catechizing, stress on the ex opere operato effectiveness of sacraments such as baptism, penance, and Eucharist.

Vatican I (in 1869) did nothing to alter the Tridentine orientation of the Roman Church; what it did do was to concentrate power- magisterial, jurisdictional, and sacramental-in the papacy, and so Roman Catholic ecclesiology during the latter decades of the nineteenth century and the first four of the twentieth dealt extensively with justification of the papal prerogatives. ⁵ Not only was a "pyramid image" of the church reinforced, but attention was centered on the point of the pyramid, for it was from that point that all truth and life and authority were seen to flow "downward" to the rest of the church. If the pope lost monarchical power in the political sphere (which he did with the end of the Papal States in 1848), he enjoyed unparalleled power as a spiritual monarch. Roman Catholic ecclesiology up to 1950 mirrors this. The papal claim to absolute jurisdiction in doctrinal, liturgical, and structural realms was virtually unchallenged. ⁶

³ As late as the 1950s, John Courtney Murray, probably the most prominent Catholic theologian in the U. S., was embroiled in a serious controversy with reactionary elements at Catholic University and in the Vatican because he proposed a theory of church-state relations grounded in the Catholic experience in the United States.
⁴ Two popular books by V. Cronin, A Pearl to India: The Life of Roberto de Nobili (New York, 1959) and The Wise Man from the West (London, 1955), the life and missionary career of Mattco Ricci, describe the imaginative approach employed by two great missionary pioneers and the crushing opposition that ensued.
⁵ This is still reflected in the third chapter of Vatican II's Constitution on the Church, which repeats large segments of Vatican I's description of Papal powers.
⁶ During this period the key to dogmatic source for Catholic ecclesiology was the decree De ecclesia of Vatican I, which says of Papal authority: ". . . if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not only in matters that pertain to faith and morals, but also in matters that pertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the whole world … let him be anathema." Translation in The Church Teaches (St. Louis, 1955). The original Latin can be found in Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum (edit. 33, 1965), #3064.

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I

A much more profound challenge, though not immediately evident, came with World War II, prepared by the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Nazism. Hatred and terrible carnage tore apart a Spain presumably united by a common Catholic faith; the churches (including the Catholic) were largely ineffective in steering the arrogant neopaganism of the Nazis or preventing the Jewish Holocaust; and the worldwide upheaval of the Second World War spelled the beginning of the end of centuries-old patterns of power.

All this touched the Roman Catholic Church at what were considered its points of strength. Authoritative teaching voices, including that of the church, became less trusted as class alignments shifted and disadvantaged "minorities" began to assert themselves. Centralized worldwide monarchies dissolved almost overnight with the collapse of colonialism. And the redemptive, sanctifying effect of religious rituals was difficult to discern amid the massive evils of the war years.

Paradoxically, the post-World War II years brought rapid and positive gains in ecclesiological understanding, almost as if to prepare for the "crisis" of the sixties and seventies. Two movements, which were integrated in Roman Catholicism only slowly and with considerable official reluctance, became major catalysts in the emergence of new understandings; these were ecumenism and liturgical renewal.

Ecurnenism had, of course, been gaining momentum among most of the other Christian churches, crystallizing in the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Rome was aloof at the beginning, though the Nazi experience had already thrown German Catholics and Protestants together and broken many of the post-Reformation stereotypes and prejudices. Slowly, the Catholic view of other Christian churches as heretical, schismatic, and redemptively ineffective began to shift; but even this slow shift was confined to a small minority. As late as the mid-fifties, theologians interested in ecumenical development were looked upon as odd and perhaps a bit dangerous; and only a handful of ecclesiologists-Congar, Dejaivfe, Weigel, Baum-were injecting an ecumenical dimension into their reflection on the church.

Those pushing for liturgical reform were no better regarded, even after the encyclical "Mediator Dei" (in 1974) and the slowly growing liturgical movement had little apparent effect on ecclesiology. Yet, as one looks back from the vantage point of Vatican II's Constitution of the Liturgy, which set the tone for the Council and led logically into the Council's classic document on the church, or looks back from the recently revised baptismal ritual with its clear demands for a "new" view of the baptizing community, ⁷ one can see how the notion of "worship community" was becoming a central category of ecclesiological understanding. The restored Holy Week liturgy, particularly the

⁷ Cf. A. Kavanagh, "Christian Initiation of Adults: The Rites," Worship, 48 (1974), pp. 318-335.

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Easter Vigil, also helped focus attention on the mystery of Christ's resurrection and tied in with the "rediscovery" of resurrection in theological and biblical circles.

Perhaps even more basic and more far-reaching in its ultimate effect on ecclesiology was the re-emergence of the laity in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. Already prominent under Pius XI in the thirties, lay activity was gathered under the title of "Catholic Action" and described officially as the "participation of the laity in the apostolate of the hierarchy." ⁸ Both title and definition proved unsatisfactory in the post-war years, when "the lay apostolate" became the common designation for involvement in the task of bettering human society. Prior to Vatican II, no official formulation matched the Evanston WCC description of lay identity and role. ⁹ However, Yves Congar published his monumental Lay People in the Church in 1950, and this had a controlling influence on Vatican II's Constitution on the Church.

While Catholic theology at mid-century seemed to be lagging in its appreciation of the elements we have just mentioned, it was developing other areas of formal reflection which would soon coalesce and under gird a more thorough analysis of laity, liturgy, and ecumenism. There was renewed attention to the dimension of mystery of the church to its continuing relation to Christ's redemptive work, to that sacramentalizing role of the Christian people referred to in the Pauline tradition by "the body of Christ" and in the Johannine by "the vine and its branches."

The aspect of mystery of the church had already received attention from the great nineteenth-century Mathias Scheeben, ¹⁰ who in turn had been deeply influenced by Schrader and Passaglia and by his reading of Greek patristic literature. Obscured for a time by the structural and jurisdictional emphasis coming with Vatican I, this current of theological reflection gradually gained momentum and was reinforced by the "mystery" approach to liturgy (associated primarily with Odo Casel). By mid-century there was a small but impressive body of historical and theological scholarship dealing with the issue-Dabin, Mersch, Tromp, Lubac, Sernmelroth. ¹¹

Drawing attention to the church's role in Christ's redemption of human history inevitably raised questions about the nature of that redemption; so there was renewed (and often contentious) discussion of grace and justification of "the supernatural," of holiness and "the

⁸ Cf. the lengthy explanation of "Catholic Action" in Y. Congar, Lay People in the Church (ET, London, 1959), pp. 344-373.
⁹ The Evanston Report (London, 1955), pp. 160-173.
¹⁰ Scheeben's classic work is appropriately named Die Mysterien des Christentums (ET, 1946, The Mysteries of Christianity; the German original appeared in 1965).
¹¹ P. Dabin, Le sacerdoce royal des fideles (Paris, 1950); E. Mersch, The Whole Christ (ET, Milwaukee, 1938) and The Theology of the Mystical Body (ET, St. Louis, 195 1); H. de Lubac, Catholicism (ET, New York, 1950) and Splendour of the Church (ET, New York, 1956); O. Semmelroth, Die Kirche als Ursakrament (second cd., Frankfurt, 1955); S. Tromp, Corpus Christi. quod est Ecclesia (Rome, 1937).

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stages of the spiritual life, ¹² " though for the moment most of this discussion was characterized by typically modern individualism and not yet integrated with ecclesiology. More radically, there was renewed questioning about the reality of Jesus as risen Lord, questioning that dealt not only with the century-long disputes about the "historical reality" of the resurrection but also with the intrinsic nature of Jesus' continuing life beyond death. Impetus for the rapid regaining of insight into the resurrection as a mystery of Christ's active presence in the Christian community came from biblical studies, with books such as Durrwell's The Resurrection (1950) and Stanley's Christ's Resurrection in Pauline Soteriology (1961), both of which awakened widespread insight into the presence of the risen Christ in the church.

At the same time, a more biblical understanding of Christian faith began to gain ground, one which stressed acceptance of the risen Christ and therefore included personal feeling and commitment as well as agreement with official doctrine. Religious experience as a basic component of faith ceased to be suspect, as it had been in the early decades of the twentieth century. ¹³ All this raised inevitably the questions about the need and role of the church that would be voiced in the "crisis of faith" of later years-questions that had remained unresolved since the reformers of the sixteenth century voiced them.

Such questions about the effectiveness of church membership in fostering Christian faith were made very real and urgent by the discovery, even prior to World War II, of widespread "leakage" in traditionally Catholic areas and an accompanying growth in Marxist influence. ¹⁴ Use of sociological methods to study the actual situation of belief and practice confirmed the suspicion that countries like France were broadly de-christianized; but with this realization came new initiatives and fresh viewpoints represented, for example, in the widely circulated pastoral letters of Cardinal Suhard in the late 1940s. One of the elements of church life most searchingly examined was that of religious instruction, and a veritable revolution began to take place in catechetics, a development that has brought to the fore in Catholic theology the question of the nature and location of teaching authority.

One other factor fed importantly into Catholic ecclesiology: biblical and historical study of the origins of Christianity. Such study, which challenged superficial justification of Christianity's claim, was regarded with continuing suspicion during the first half of the century.

¹² Much of the controversy swirled around H. de Lubac's Surnaturel (Paris, 1946). Cf. Karl Rahner's essay, "Concerning the Relationship between Nature and Grace," Theological Investigations, vol. 1 (1961), pp. 297-317. (The article appeared earlier in Orientierung, in 1950.)
¹³ Jean Mouroux's two books, The Christian Experience (ET, New York, 1954) and I Believe (ET, New York, 1959), were particularly influential in validating within Catholic circles an emphasis on experienced faith.
¹⁴ Cf. Maisie Ward, France Pagan? (London, 1948) and the earlier volume of Henri Godin and Yvan Daniel, France, Pays De Mission (Paris, 1943), which had been so instrumental in awakening the French church.

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Some of this suspicion lasts up to the present, but Catholic scholars no longer labor under the cloud of the anti-modernist decrees and the 1905-40 judgments of the Biblical Commission, nor in the witch hunting atmosphere that preceded and found expression in the encyclical "Humani-generis" (1950).

Despite opposition, historical research into the church's roots (Catholic and Protestant alike) has contributed in no small measure to clarifying that basis of historical events upon which any solid ecclesiology must rest. In addition, by indicating both the pluralism and the developmental character of early Christianity, such research has helped liberate Catholic thought from some of the rigidities of the past four centuries.

II

The Second Vatican Council did not inaugurate a new era in Christianity, not even a new era in Catholicism; that new era whatever it is to become-was already well on its way for at least two decades. World War II, not Vatican II, is the watershed. What the council did do was to legitimate (though not to approve) many of the progressive developments in Roman Catholic thought and life; to alter the direction of thought and practice that had stretched from Trent through Vatican I; to foster the hope that Catholicism and "the modern world" could learn to live in creative interaction; and to communicate some seminal insights that could prove to be principles of an exciting new understanding of Christianity. ¹⁵ As is commonly recognized, Vatican II did this primarily in ecclesiology, for the Constitution on the Church is at once the most thoroughly-prepared and the most controlling document from the Council. But more precisely, what did Vatican II coatribute to present-day Catholic ecclesiology?

First, the Council introduced long-neglected images or models ("people of God," "family," "prophetic community," etc.) alongside the classic political and organizational models, thus challenging the exclusivity, perhaps even the appropriateness, of these concepts. Given the critical input of imagery into all human intuition and categorizing, the Council's shift towards more personal, organic images is of inestimable ecclesiological importance. So much attention has been paid to this aspect of the conciliar documents that there is no need for us to do more than mention it, ¹⁶ except for one element: in many ways, the key "model" to which Vatican II points as the basic guide to accurate understanding of the church is Christians' experience of being the community of believers in Jesus Christ in today's world. Behind the oft-repeated statement that this was to be a "pastoral" Council, and

¹⁵ For a wide-ranging commentary on the Vatican II documents, cf. Vatican II. An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. by J. Miller (Notre Dame, 1966).
¹⁶ A thorough study of the various images or models applied to the church is provided by A. Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden City, 1974).

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behind the fact that pastoral concerns did function as a criterion for conciliar judgments, ties the premise that the Christian people's experience of being the faith community should be accepted as a basic source for ecclesiology. The implications of such use of Christian experience as the starting point for theological reflection are limitless. ¹⁷

Secondly, the Council identifies the church with the people who make up the community of faith. Quite obviously this works against the long-standing tendency to relate "the church" to official levels of the church; it directs ecclesiology away from the limiting perspective of Vatican I's De ecclesia; but it goes far beyond this, and counteracts the centuries long use of "the church" to refer to a personified abstraction or "legal personage" to which Christians were to have devotion. To some extent, at least, terms such as "holy mother church" or "a devoted son, or daughter of the church" had conveyed this impression. Now the Council directs Catholics to realize that they, the community, are the church. In such a context, "fidelity to the church" takes on a drastically different meaning than it had earlier, for it now relates to people rather than to institutions.

Thirdly, in its acknowledgment that membership in the church extended beyond the Roman Catholic community and embraced all those joined to Christ in baptism, the Council laid on Catholic ecclesiologists the imperative of broadening their reflection on the church to include the traditions, history, and present reality of the entire church. Ecumenical perspective can no longer be considered a "take-it-or-leave-it" attribute of ecclesiology; to lack it is a clear indication of inadequacy. With this broadened view of "the church" comes a host of questions for Catholic ecclesiologists. What are the basic principles of Christian identity and unity? What elements are required for a Christian community to be "true church"? What are the limits of acceptable pluralism in doctrine, liturgy, and polity? To what extent is the church's saving activity tied to agencies (e.g., the episcopacy) that Catholics have always seen as necessary to the church's very existence?

As this redirection of thinking about the church to Christians in-community rather than to church-as-religious-organization takes effect, it is having revolutionary impact on the existential reality of Christianity and consequently upon ecclesiology. For one thing, the historical evolution of Christian faith and experience rather than abstract categorizing of the church's nature and activity is becoming the dominant logos used to structure reflection about the church. Again, the consensus fidelium assumes more prominence as a criterion for accurate theological analysis; previous formulations of doctrine (even conciliar and papal formulations) in consequence exercise less

¹⁷ Probably one of the principal areas of development along this line will be the construction of a Christian pneumatology grounded in the faith experience of the Christian community. One of The interesting features of this possibility is the striking prominence of charismatic movements in churches (such as the Catholic) which previously were almost devoid of such "spirit" movements.

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dominance; and orthopraxis assumes more importance relative to orthodoxa. As the social existence of Christians becomes a primary object of theological analysis, the social and behavioral sciences will become increasingly integrated into ecclesiology.

Fourth, Vatican II shifted emphasis to the dimension of mystery of the church, to the church's function as body and sacrament of the risen Christ. One of the frequently-used expressions of the Council is "the mystery of Christ," used in the all-encompassing sense of Ephesians 4 to which some Catholic theologians of the forties and fifties had redirected attention. This Christ-centered movement closely paralleled developments within Protestant theology where reflection about the church had increasingly revealed that the underlying questions were Christological. ¹⁸ The parallelism raises the important question: what really are the forces that so clearly transcend denominational bounds?

It would not be accurate to suppose that Vatican II moved unreservedly in the four directions we have just mentioned. Actually, the conciliar documents contain both "old" and "new" viewpoints side by side, very often with the incompatibilities of the two views left unresolved. Probably the most striking instance is chapter three of the Constitution of the Church where the collegiality of the episcopacy is stated along with repetition of Vatican I's declarations of papal ultimacy. Such inconsistency is not, however, surprising. The conciliar documents by their very nature are meant to reflect the full scope of Catholic beliefs, and for the moment there is a wide range of belief and considerable difference of views on the ecclesiological issues discussed by Vatican II. ¹⁹

III

The ambiguity present in Vatican II has carried over into the decade since the Council, in both professional and popular circles. Tension between conservative and liberal groups-a not too felicitous but generally-used designation-has marked the post-conciliar years, and to some extent at least, both groups have tried to justify their stance by appeal to selected passages from the Council's documents.

However, the conflict between opposing ecclesiologists within the Catholic Church is not rooted in differing exegesis of Vatican II's decrees. Rather, the roots are differing postures regarding political and social movements (such as Marxism), regarding contemporary philosophical developments (particularly as these touch upon human behav-

¹⁸ Using World Council of Churches documents. as an index, one can notice a definite turning towards Christological issues with the Lund 1952 meeting of Faith and Order. Cf. pp. 69-99 in C. Simonson, Christology of the Faith and Order Movement (Leiden, 1972).
¹⁹ Perhaps the best way of obtaining a view of this spectrum of Catholic opinion is to examine the volumes of Concilium. a series of post-Vatican II1 monographs written and edited by an international group of prominent theologians (mostly Catholic), published in several languages (in the U.S. by Seabury Press), and then compare it with the articles published during the past few years in Homiletic and Pastoral Review.

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ior), regarding the desirable balance between continuity and discontinuity in the process of historical change, regarding the nature of divine guidance as it safeguards the essential elements of Christianity's life. These are more radically determinative of theological views. This was illustrated by the recent Puebla meeting in January, 1979, and its tangled aftermath where ecclesiological and socio-economic views are inseparable.

Given this intertwining of religious and secular attitudes, one can still distinguish some of the specifically ecclesiological issues that separate the two wings of Catholicism today. The first of these is "ecumenism," which has gradually in the past two decades acquired a meaning quite beyond the notion of "reunion of Christians." ²⁰ Beginning with Vatican II, the question now includes the relation of faith as found in Judaism or Islam or the great Eastern world religions to the faith possessed by Christians. New Testament studies have reinforced the reality of this question about non-Christian faiths by indicating that the Christian church cannot simply identify itself as "the kingdom of God"; hopefully, the church pertains quite substantially to this kingdom, but the rule of God in human lives extends far beyond the social boundaries of the Christian community. ²¹

To say all this, however, challenges many "traditional" understandings about the Catholic church's role as "guardian of revelation" and "mediator of salvation." Progressive Catholic theology cannot face this challenge by a simple rejection of past doctrine and theology (any more than reactionary Catholic thought can solve it by unrelenting repetition of the past); instead, there is a difficult but necessary task of ferreting out the underlying truth in previous Catholic statements that are now seen as too absolute and restrictive.

A second point of difference has to do with the decentralization of the church. That some such social phenomenon is occurring (and along with it a questioning of the hierarchical model for the church) seems hard to dispute, but whether such movement towards increased emphasis on local and regional communities should be encouraged or resisted is a matter of considerable tension. Understandably, the Vatican itself is not wholeheartedly in support of such a centrifugal trend, since "decentralization" in Catholic circles is essentially de-Romanization. But it would be a mistake to see this Vatican reluctance as sheer desire to retain power and prominence; centuries of experience in working to maintain

²⁰ One can see this development reflected in the issues of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies during the past decade, even though the journal (the most comprehensive and representative ecumenical publication in North America) had already opened up to more than Christian reunion concerns at the beginning of the decade.
²¹ One of the early studies to influence Catholic thinking in this regard was R. Schnackenburg's God's Rule and Kingdom (ET, New York, 1963); a more recent study (reflecting the very considerable study of this notion in the parables of Jesus) is N. Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (Philadelphia, 1976).

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church unity have given the papacy an awareness of the dangers latent in decentralization.

If one, for example, advocates a greater role of regional and language groups in the formulation of Christian doctrine, how does one propose to avoid a "Tower of Babel" in Christian profession of faith? There are possible approaches, perhaps the most important today being the utilization of modern communication techniques to create a common consciousness on a global scale. It is here that creative ecclesiology must serve the pragmatic needs of the church by investigating the intrinsic acceptability and projected effectiveness of such alternatives to central power. The same applies to the need to recast, theoretically and practically, a liturgical and social unity that would function realistically within a church that is a community of local communities.

Encouragement of, or resistance to, such fundamental structural change is closely linked with a third important difference of view within Catholic circles: whether or not the church can be seen as developing in history. For very many Christians, and not only Catholics, the Roman Catholic community (practically equitable with its official structures) has projected the image of unchanging adherence to traditional dogma, liturgy, and authority-an image that was intensified in the century between the two Vatican Councils. But the past three decades have seen that image altered. Biblical and theological research have brought to light the immense changes that occurred over the past two millennia; liturgical reforms indicated that the considerable change can occur at the very heart of Christian life; and Vatican II itself contested the overly-rigid view of ecclesiastical structures and authority that many had identified with the Catholic Church. As a result, the hope of "restoration" has appealed to sizable groups within the church, groups that feel that if Vatican II was not a mistake at least things have gone too far since the Council.

Even if one does not wish to go as far as these reconstructionist groups, there is still a fundamental question about the manner in which one would wish to understand a term like "evolution" when it is applied to the historical existence of Christianity. In the dialectic between continuity and discontinuity, how much of each is legitimate? What are the basic elements of continuity that form the heart of tradition, elements without which the Christian community loses its identity? How much can Christianity admit into its own life those "outside" viewpoints and values and activities that one might characterize as "secular" without compromising truth or endangering the faith of the Christian people? When one reflects that the answer to such questions flow from one's vision of the nature of the church, it is clear how central ecclesiology is for Catholic life at the present moment.

A fourth area of debate is patent and much discussed: the question of authority in the church-its nature, its limits, its relation to power, its

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location, its source. For a variety of reasons (some of them already mentioned), the recent disputes about authority within the Catholic Church have centered upon teaching authority and (somewhat derivatively) sacramental authority. What is at question is the notion of Magisterium: whether or not a given group in the church, more specifically the episcopacy as centered in the Papacy, can lay claim and precisely by virtue of official position-to a fullness of teaching authority so great that it can pass judgment upon any other exercise of teaching within the church.

While it did not by itself raise the question (actually the development of modern biblical, historical, and theological scholarship had already done that), the encyclical Humanae vitae made it clear that the question could not be avoided and that discussion of it could not be postponed. ²² So, with considerable emotional response, Catholics arc engaged in reflection about authority in the church, and about that authority as it touches them directly in their parish communities and their daily lives. On the theological level, there are indications that this reflection is being more and more controlled by the link between Christology and ecclesiology. Obviously there can be no ultimate authority within the church other than that of Christ as Lord, and the nature of his Lordship is the measure for evaluating any exercise of ecclesiastical authority.

Finally, and inseparable from the concerns already mentioned, the fifth point of differing Catholic views concerns the roles that various persons or groups are to play in the church. Recent decades have seen a growing reassertion by laity of their rightful place in the ministry of the church. Though not generally recognized as such, a number of ministries have come to be exercised in response to the needs of people counseling, healing of various kinds, peace-making, teaching; in many instances these have attained quite autonomous status though also receiving approbation from the Christian communities out of which they functioned. Because these different forms of service were carried on by persons who had not been liturgically ordained to the official pastorate, they were not looked upon as ministry in the strict sense; yet the existential reality of the situation has been that of genuine exercise of Christian ministry.

This development, coupled with the so-called "identity-crisis" among clergy, i.e., the questioning within clerical circles about the distinctive function of the ordained within the life of the church, has appreciably broadened the view of roles in the Christian community. At present

²² The importance of the authority issue as it was involved in this encyclical is reflected in the fact that Richard McCormick, in the moral theology notes published annually in Theological Studies, devoted the major portion (ten pages) in 1969 to the question of teaching authority relative to "Humanae vitae." Theological Studies, 30 (1969), pp. 635-668. Cf. also his "The Magisterium and Theology," Catholic Society of America Proceedings, 24 (1969), pp. 239-254.

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there is a large-scale move in the Catholic Church away from the limitation of active ministry to those designated by ordination as professionals and an increased recognition that a great variety of roles are to be exercised by the laity. As a matter of fact, the very division between clergy and laity is being seriously questioned.

Much of the recent re-appraisal of roles within the Catholic Church has dealt with the position and activity of women. Attention has been centered on the "ordination of women," i.e., their admission to full Presbyterian and Episcopal ministry; and the two North American Conferences on the Ordination of Women (in Detroit in 1976 and in Baltimore in 1978) have resulted in major clarification of the issues involved. ²³ However, the issue of ordination is symbolic of a much broader struggle, that of obtaining for women full entry into ministerial activity, and therefore full status, in the church. Ecclesiologically, this has (along with some of the other developments we mentioned earlier) raised the question of the nature and grounds of Christian ministry, and beyond that the question of the relation between charism and structure in the life of the Church.

IV

I hope that it will become more and more artificial to speak about the future development of any given Christian denominational ecclesiology (Catholic or otherwise), for theological investigation of the Christian community should become an effort into which the experiences and traditions and insights of the various traditions flow. But for the foreseeable future, Catholic theology about the church will no doubt develop along somewhat distinctive lines, continuing along the paths already being followed. However, as we just indicated, there are broad and important differences of opinion on all the key topics in Catholic ecclesiology, so any detailed projection about the shape of Catholic reflection on the church in the next decade or so is hazardous.

It does seem clear, however, that historical awareness and the results of careful historical research will have continuing, and probably increasing, impact on Catholic ecclesiology. There is a large backlog of very specific historical studies, tucked away in periodicals or monographs or Festschriften, that has not yet been incorporated into synthetic reflection based on the historical development of the church. As these bits and pieces are fitted together, we will no doubt have a somewhat changed view of what the church has actually been. ²⁴

²³ See Women and Catholic Priesthood: An Expanded Vision, ed. by A. Gardiner, (New York, 1976) the proceedings of the first conference. The edited proceedings of the 1978 Baltimore session have not yet appeared.
²⁴ This has already happened, in a fairly major way, to much Catholic understanding of Christian origins. Cf. H. Küng, The Church (ET, New York, 1967); J. Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (ET, London, 1964); Handbook of Church History, ed. by H. Jedin and J. Dolan, Vol. I (New York, 1965), authored by K. Baus.

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Moreover, we may have to adjust (perhaps quite a bit) our understanding of the forces that shaped the church's historical experience.

More basically, we will probably appreciate more deeply the relativity attaching to any particular historical happening or institution in the life of the church. Even privileged situations of the church's career, such as the New Testament period or the great councils, will not be viewed as monopolizing the action of Christ's Spirit; rather, the church will be seen more clearly as a living reality constantly being "instituted" by the risen Christ through the power of his Spirit; and for that reason, nothing in the institutions of the Christian community can be completely definitive until the eschaton. At the same time, we will probably come to cherish each historical moment of the church's religious experience as something unique, as possessing a certain absoluteness because it can never be duplicated or completely replaced by later developments. Church history will not be a matter of information about our origins; rather, it will be a vicarious reliving of our roots as a part of our own Christian identification. Ecclesiology will be reflection upon Christian community, not just as it is today but as it has been in a process that embodies throughout history the redeeming action of God in Christ.

It is probably safe to say that theology will utilize religious experience as a starting-point even more than it has done in the past two decades. This will mean that the development of ecclesiology will spring from careful reflection upon the communal experience of Christians, upon their shared awareness of what it means to be the church, upon the manifestations of the Spirit as prophetic and life-giving.

This will not be an entirely new approach for ecclesiology; what will be new will be some of the experiences shared in tomorrow's church. Perhaps the most drastic shift will come in terms of a changed status and role for women. Not only will half of the Christian community gradually have a new experience of equality and dignity and ministerial activity, but for the first time since the apostolic age the unvoiced experience of that half of the church will begin to contribute to ecclesiological reflection. Or again, as liturgical worship gradually becomes the more authentically human experience it is meant to be, it will function with increased sacramental effectiveness in transforming Christians' understanding of themselves as the church. Still other new experiences will provide a revolutionary base for ecclesiology-to name only two that promise to be prominent: increased movement of the various Christian communities towards some fuller ecumenical acceptance of one another, and the expanded activity of the non-ordained, men and women, in the ministerial mission of the church.

In what may be the most critical ecclesiological task of the immediate future, Catholic scholars will wrestle with the uniqueness of the church as an agent of salvation, a uniqueness whose meaning must be rethought as Christians become more informed about the role that other world religions have played in leading men and women to their human

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fulfillment. The root of the church's uniqueness is, of course, the uniqueness that is proper to Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ; ²⁵ thus ecclesiology will be almost inseparable from the coming developments in Christology.

While it is artificial to separate Christology from soteriology, and theology will continue to grapple with the questions surrounding the identity and ontological reality of Jesus, Christian theology is certainly embarked on a more functional approach to understanding Jesus. What we are searching for is a more accurate understanding of what Jesus actually did-in his life, death, and resurrection-and of what he continues to do as the Lord of history. Here, again, Christology and ecclesiology will become indistinguishable; theology about the present salvific action of Christ will inevitably lead us into a Christian pneumatology; but the only starting-point for a realistic pneumatology is the experience of the Christian community, for it is this experience which manifests the activity of the prophetic and creative Spirit. ²⁶

Hidden in these developments -or perhaps not so hidden-will be a deep challenge to some of the classical Catholic soteriology and ecclesiology, a challenge to previous understandings of how human salvation is furthered by the mediation of the church. For many centuries, this very question has been formulated and considered in terms of the structured elements of the church. The church's saving role has been discussed for the most part by examining the causal function of church officials-in preaching, in sacramental administration, in spiritual leadership. Throughout this discussion, the possession of jurisdictional authority as a basis for salvific power gradually assumed major importance.²⁷ It was because they were in the true line of ministerial authority, and only when they functioned within that context (for example, by obtaining authorization from tile bishop of the area in which they were active), that the ordained were able to act for God in giving grace and forgiving sin.

In many ways, of course, this is dealing with the question of justification and so may not seem new, but there are indications that we are finally into a new level of discussion that goes beyond the Reformation and post-Reformation formulations of the issue. The very fact that the underlying question is recognized as Christological means that we can theologize in a pre-polemic context.

²⁵ "Uniqueness" as applied to Jesus of Nazareth is a matter of considerable discussion among Catholic theologians (as well as others), and obviously is inseparable from the question of Jesus' "divinity." For recent Catholic views an this, cf. E. Schillebeeckx, Jesus (ET, New York, 1979); J. Mackey, Jesus: The Man and the Myth (New York, 1979); or P. Knitter's article in the Fall, 1978 issue of Horizons.
²⁶ "Both the volumes of Schillebecckx and Mackey (cited above) point towards this development; for an evaluation of this approach as it touches Christology, see P. Rosato, "Spirit Christology: Ambiguity and Promise," Theological Studies 38 (1977), pp. 423-449.
²⁷ For a description of this historical development, see my Ministry to Word and Sacraments, (Philadelphia, 1976), part four, pp. 405-521.

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Finally, ecclesiology is certain to be touched by the shift taking place in theological understanding of "divine providence." In the past, and still to quite an extent today, the action of God governing the ongoing reality of the cosmos and of human history is viewed as somewhat magical. The constant biblical attack on magic witnesses to this temptation. Even more widespread is the tendency to see providence as a series of miracles; that is, God is always steering the outcome of things by quite direct, though hidden, intervention. Under several pressures (perhaps most importantly that of modern science), the understanding of "providence" is moving away from these inaccurate views and towards what we might call "a theology of divine presence." ²⁸

This is not the point to detail current philosophical discussion of presence and its theological application to the questions of God's action in the world. However, it clearly touches upon the matter of people acting as agents of God's saving activity, very precisely therefore upon the role of the church and the nature of its ministries, and upon the way in which the church, as the body of the risen Christ, functions to make present in human history the divine saving power. Another way of expressing this new direction of Christian thought is to say that our understanding of "providence" will become thoroughly Christological, and our ecclesiology will become thoroughly theological.

²⁸ "Already in his book, The Christ (ET, New York, 1971), Piet Schoonenberg links the questions of "providence" and of God's presence in Jesus as Incarnate Word; the first part of the book, pp. 1 3-49, is devoted to a reconsideration of the classic discussion about God's relationship to creation and history.